Casting Crusoe overboard
Friday manned the helm;
He promised us ripe atolls
Circling pure azure lagoons,
Where stifling stitch
Of civilised starch melts
In tropical pores.
Coconut thatch, fletch
Of palm frond web, resplendant
Blooming bougainvillaea
Shelter us from regimen
Dissecting day and night.
In rigid states whence we derived,
Clockwork gaolers toiled,
Forging the disparate links
Of chains constricting Time;
Conducting desolation
To a metronomic click;
Staccatto arcs tapped a pulse;
Nearer Death with every
Half-dishearted beat –
Fodder for an Industrial cAge.
How fortunate to bide our wiles
On spicey isles of just dessert,
Trifling qualms all trickle
From cherry lips down chocolate chin.
Friday laughs away our guilty
Residue, dances past paralysis
Hobbling giant strides;
His chanting clears our throats
Lending voice to hushed desires;
Friday´s passion thaws the icing
Paranoia´s caked us in.
Jellied eels! We squirm still
In dreams of former selves.
Friday fortifies our skittish flights,
Assuring us our senses will return
And nature´s rhythm sway
Our spines with grace anon.
Every pregnant moon
We scuttle across the dunes
Towards a golden beach
Midas would envy
And Crassus would crave.
Reckless we brave the cruel
Hook-bills of swooping gulls,
To reach the foaming surf.
We tie ourselves to the undertow
And sweep beneath the swell
Through the dorsal arch
Of grinning whites generous
With our limbs.
We shave our shaggy manes
Over razor edge of coral reef.
Sleek as seals we gain the Deep
Where each oceanwide azimuth
Reflects another setting sun
Just beyond the crest
Of a lingering last wave.
Invariably we rise at dawn
Reclining on the softest down
Of warming sand -
Washed ashore upon the very
Slice of paradise
We left the night before.
Friday smiles a welcome.
We comb the tides
For Crusoe´s correspondance –
A prolific author of messages in bottles
With a penchant for repeating
Endless SOS aphorisms, we no longer
Care to comprehend.
Pathetic scratchings scrawled in scabs
Of crusty ink of vein,
Will never reach a port of call.
We bury all his glass communiques
Under rocks and roots
Where hermit crabs stand sentry.
None of us can fathom
Nostalgia´s stubborn hold
Upon his riven psyche
And lost bewildered soul.
He puts us all in dire straits;
Imperils our noble savagery
With a backward yearning
For choker-collars styled cravats,
The buttoned shackles and buckled
Manacles modern mania concocts
For incarcerating liberty
Through rude convention´s
Stultifying mores.
He scans the sea for schooners
For passage back to penury,
Where our spirits are the castaways
Impoverished by progress.
Despite Friday´s gentle censure
We ache to silence Crusoe´s
Social gaffes for good.
For good of all we opine
But Friday calmly shakes his head,
Allays our raging rant.
”Without fear there is no hate”
He would warble; and besides
We have no inkling where,
Upon which verdant islet,
In heaven´s archipelago,
Crusoe has christened
His personal hell.
And eventually
We forget to fret;
Contentment smooths our brows.
We devote each precious breath
To bask and bathe
Away the daze;
Finetuned to follow
Diurnal ebb and timeless
Flow.
Just as Friday had promised.
Author notes
An allegorical slant illuding both sides of an egg won´t make us wiser.
Remove the shell however and we discover that the other side is INSIDE.
(Oh, and until you free the mind Paradise is poignantly relative...blablah..)
Personally I prefer weekends.
Isle of Pain? [Reward: double points]
Comments
1 - 13 of 13
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I see a face within this place
and constitution of resolution
to abide the slide into the norm
and crop the slop within the quorum
to step aside and let it ride
as soma gas fills up inside
the goal to trawl for deeper stations
harbored in nascent sublimations
chopped in two by riders who
float the gusts of what we do
and imperil with risk of sterile
scribblings due Mustapha true.
I divine a deeper time
past the hands of minute and hour
where enigmatic scrawlings flower
and freedom blossoms as it should
beyond the gray of stately wood.
Thoughts and feelings send us reeling
to a place so deep inside
accelerated to decide
past Mustapha's selfish pride.
Okay, the message I got here was one of conformity to the powers that be and the norms of society, shunning reckless intransigence and sinking into the soma sleep of uniformity. I couldn't help but get a visual of Mustapha Mond from Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" supplanting Friday in your poem, casting John(Crusoe) overboard and lulling to soma sleep those who quest for more than nine to five social sobriety. Mustapha, while fronting social responsibility for the greater good, was really quite selfish in his desires to be at the forefront of seeming self-sacrifice for society. Mustapha, like every totalitarian fascist, simply loved the power to wield the will of others and the kudos consequently engendered by such stifling, stultifying symbiosis. I like how you bring this to light, but then you begin anew a visual of rebirth and golden shores seemingly brought on by soma submission. I really enjoyed this poem, but was rather disappointed at the sound of weakening resolve at the end that seemed to signal complete submission to soma coma. The feeling of disappointment in me was rather palpable and left me with a feeling of abandonment that I didn't quite care for, no matter the masterful method with which it was concocted. Perhaps this is just the subtle ironic twist robbing credence from the final credo that submission really is best.
I feel the main challenge to each of us is in staying in the John spectrum and staying away from the Bernard extreme.
As usal, this was another incredible work from the talented gG and left me with imagery overload from your action packed and visually rich lines. This was great, gG. I just didn't care for the final sentiment.
Al
p.s. I don't like the applause thing either, but I gotta give you all I can for this.
. Rewarded 8
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dazzling
you amaze me Gg, every poem is different and a hunky bite of a treat. It's your language use, the packed tight images that roll one after the other til the brain is colour-full and IN the places you're conjuring. Also your use of rhyme, subtly and internally (crave..brave). Re-reading that first verse especially, the Bourgainvillia is the last in a line of an interior decorator's dream, the 'stich'ed 'starch'ed images disintegrating in that inevitably moist 'pores'.
Just a few of many gems here. I'm hooked.
. Rewarded 8
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An Age to Reply
Which I hope you can forgive me for, Jera Jam. Thank you for this comment - the tardiness of my reply does in no way mean to imply any lack of appreciation. I had great fun "alittering" the beach with this one. Often the grain of sand irritating the oyster is more interesting than the pearl it eventually forms.
Cheers
gG
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Congratulations
I refer of course to the 'Harlequinn' success I discerned below. There is some justice in this ol' world after all! I've never been able to believe that a talent such as your own could go unnoticed by any sort of decent literary establishment. Such recognition, though only a start I'm sure, is long overdue.
On the poem itself, it gave me a smile and brought me back to those glory days when Friday nights belonged to the boys and far too much beer and I liked the premise of contrasting Crusoe and Friday's values. Of course, deeper and more philosophical issues are dealt with and we could be here all night!But I was reminded of that rather mixed blessing of a film 'The Beach'.Your responses show you are all too aware of how flawed the idea of a 'chilled' Utopia really is, but I'm delighted to see you in such a relaxed and indolent frame of mind. Success becomes you! Nice Poem. >W<. Rewarded 8
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Life´s a Beach for Shore!
Cheers Windhover! I remain indebted to my worthy peers at SwearPo who have made me a helluva better poet than I would ve been.
Danny Boyle´s Beach was a mixed blessing I agree, I read the book before seeing the film which of course was far better.
I suppose it is the pregnant potential of trouble in paradise that keeps indolent bastards like me (stepping) on our toes. Otherwise we just trust that any invading vikings will simply sink in the sand.
Thanx W.
gG
PS. Sorry about the lack of comments from my part. Nearly every spare writing moment is going into Irma Vep and the continued upkeep of studied indolence .
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gG, weekends, sure...
...but oh the unattainable utopiac pleasure of every weekend on Fiji! But whom am I kidding? It'll be a weekend of a few drinks, a restaurant, maybe a movie, a good poke in the hay, and some fine wine and reading. Come to think of it, it's not quite Fiji, but it's feely, and that ain't so bad.
Nifty tropical longing, Simon; nice reversal of protagonist in that undying tale. Would that Friday could have written an adventure story of his own - how different that surely would have been - but I think you've done it here in verse.
Well, what you've done in this very nicely styled and voiced poem comes pretty close to that - whether weekend or lifetime, paradise is where it's at, where we can "silence Crusoe's / Social gaffes for good." - great line, among many!
Altogether a finely wrought, playfully yearning trip with Friday at the helm.
Cheers, gG! And thanks for this loveliness in verse.
Lad
PS: Simon, yesterday I decided not to use those "applause" thingies anymore, although I'm perfectly ok with others using them. Having been a teacher most of my life, putting a grade on papers was always distasteful to me - seemed so patronizing. I always preferred writing commentary instead of A, B, C and so on - but the System decreed otherwise. So, no more As, Bs or Cs from me. Besides, on SharePo, I think a comment should say it all anyway. Hope you understand!
. Rewarded 8
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Aloha, Lad!
Heheh. Yeah Fiji feely-good is about as far as you can get from Norway, that´s for sure. Many thanx for the comment, Lad, and no worries concerning the applause bollox.
The idea for Friday´s perspective is not my own originally. In my budding youth I distinctly recall viewing this great film (I think it was called Man Friday) where the roles were gradually reversed between Crusoe and his "boy".
Cheers again!
gG
PS. So you were a teacher also, my friend? There are quite a few of us here at SP. By the way I ve just received an e-mail that two poems of mine have been accepted by Harlequin Magazine. Yes! I m no longer a poetical virgin! -
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Congrats, gG on the Harlequin thing. 'Bout time! Lad
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Congratulations! Not surprised.
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rry
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hey gG
not bad for a retropastural allegory.
there used to be this show, Gulligans Island where a little tour boat gets shipwrecked on a desert island, but what the hell, they were fairly comfortable with hammocks and could eat tropical fruits and fish from the lagoon. then there was the sexy Ginger and girl next door looking Mary Ann. what else could a man want. And hell the rescue ship to me was a death knell and besides then the show would be over. anyway Bob somebody an actor with modest talent rode that ship into the sunset and died a rich man.
dave. Rewarded 8
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Sweet Pairo´dice.
Cheers Dave. Gilligans Island is for our generation a pertinent point of referance for sure. Have you seen the brit comedy Bottom? They did a live show called Hooligans Island.
When I was 12 or so I saw this brilliant film I think was called Man Friday (no not the porn version, Dave) where the roles became gradually reversed as Crusoe´s civilised arrogance/aggressiveness/inhibited/ridiculousness satirically exposed the bedrock of our questionable virtues.
This was kind of what I had in mind, but this was a piece that just flowed staight out of my musehole so it could ve ended up anywhere.
Thanx again mate.
gG
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Oh the injustice of it all! Just when I have no spare time at all, hardly for breathing, I find a poem of such length and no doubt, magnitude. Certainly it starts with a splash.
Certainly too, because my mind is preoccupied with the division of the AP course I teach into two or three courses and the work in revising the entire teaching website. Put that on the back burner to simmer.
Alliteration trapped me, unwilling but helpless, with "stifling stitch Of civilised starch" Ah yes. So I'm here. And I can see among the "Blooming bougainvillaea" that I must return to "rigid states whence we derived," and do that work if I am to do justice here, at all, "constricting Time; Conducting desolation To a metronomic click;" must first be done if I am to do justice to this.
So I'll be back after much webwork, "Fodder for an Industrial cAge." I don't do this for points anyway, so will return perhaps too late to find the poem, (so I bookmarked it). Yet, to post something trivial in the face of obvious magnificence is, in a word, impossible.
I take that away with me. Perhaps as it waits, it may speed me to a conclusion where fourteen assignments wait to be processed. "How fortunate to bide our wiles On spicey isles of just dessert," indeed! I shall surely succumb on my return, but meanwhile work has its hard demands.
This is not a review but a promise: Je reviendrai.
Terry
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Commanding Comment!
For a non-review this was indeed a treat to receive, Terry! I can only applaud your dedication and work ethic capacity to be able to find time and mind to both read and fling in this great non-review!
This is a most recent write and partially conceived from thoughts surrounding our discourse on Time in its varied states. The pre-industrial age was as you know far nearer and attuned to the natural rhythms of nature which Friday represents.
Because of where the world is heading in regard to the depletion of extant resources, humanity will soon have to make do with "less". Of course that does not mean Utopia lies just around the next palm tree or skeletal frame of industrial chimney stack.
But there is a bounty to be uncovered if one mutinies against material trappings. (I just wish such a bounty could include a laptop for writing, the internet, dental hygiene, oh and plenty of books aswell as the latest in home entertainment, Heinz Salad Cream, a cellphone for easy access, a decent pub with its own local brewery producing fine ales, classical music, Marilon Mansen......................)
no more energG
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